


Just keep breathin’

by stateofdreamin



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Amy Centric, Angst, Anxiety, Depression, F/M, OCD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 03:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofdreamin/pseuds/stateofdreamin
Summary: Amy Santiago is having a rough day





	Just keep breathin’

**Author's Note:**

> me vs projecting my own struggles onto amy, i’m sorry :-(
> 
> i wrote this on my phone and it’s almost 3am so if there are any typos, i apologize

Amy Santiago is having a rough day. She doesn’t really know what caused it, she just knows that she’s sitting at her desk having the feeling of fifty elephants sitting on her chest. It’s exhausting, to say the least.

 

No one from the nine nine knows she has depression, except for Holt because it’s in her file.

 

(She hates that he knows it, having depression as something that describes her to her boss, her  _mentor_ , was embarrassing. It made her seem weak, which she’s not).

 

They know about her OCD and her anxiety, and that’s okay, but something about the thought of them knowing about her depression makes her feel uncomfortable in a way she can’t really explain.

 

It hasn’t been that big of an issue lately, sure she feels sad sometimes when she wakes up, but she pushes herself out of bed and tries to turn it around. Even though the nagging feeling of defeat is there every time she fails at something, she pushes through. No one can say that Amy Santiago is weak.

 

It was more of an issue in her teenage years, when she didn’t do as well as she wanted at a test and those negative, condescending and crushing thoughts came. She didn’t know how to handle it, and she didn’t want to tell her parents about it. As the only girl out of eight kids, people already saw her as fragile and weak. (God, she hates that word). She has something to prove, and she didn’t want the fact that she’s so, so sad all the time change anyone’s opinion of her for the worst. Especially her parents.

 

Hiding her depression got harder after she and Jake started dating. She loves him, she really really does, and even though she knows he won’t think of her any differently, there’s still that thought in the back of her mind saying  _what if?_

 

She’s having a rough day, and she thought she could get herself out of that heavy feeling, but Gina has been joking about her all day and as much as she knows that Gina doesn’t mean anything by it, she’s just so tired.

 

All she wants to do is go home, and go to sleep. She feels like she’s about to burst into tears at the same time as she’s not really feeling sad. She’s not feeling anything, she realizes, except for numbness. After Gina makes a joke about her pantsuit, again, that makes rosa laugh, she slowly gets up and walks into Holt’s office.

 

(Of course, she waits a while so it doesn’t seem suspicious. The last thing she wants is to hear from Gina that she can’t take a joke.)

 

Within 20 minutes, she’s on her way home.

 

Amy calls in sick the next day, and the day after that. She knows that it’s not a good idea to sit in it, that she should push herself out of bed and go take a shower, but she just can’t.

 

Even though she wants to get out of bed and to work, she can’t muster up the energy to do it. There’s dishes in the sink calling her name, and the coffee stained shirt she desperately wants clean is still on the floor of her bathroom, but she can’t bring herself to care.

 

Jake, sweet Jake, has been texting her asking if she was feeling okay, if he should bring some chicken soup from that restaurant they love, but she just turns the phone off and goes to sleep.

 

He knocks on her door half an hour later, because she hasn’t responded to anyone’s texts in a few days and the only sign of her actually being alive was her calling in sick. AndAmy Santiago never calls in sick.

 

She groans, and gets out of bed for the first one in hours. When she opens the door she expects a lecture, a rant about how everyone is worried and how she shouldn’t just turn off her phone when people are trying to reach her, but instead she gets pulled into a hug.

 

“I know”, he whispers into her hair. He’s holding her so close, and she feels safe. “I know what you’re going through, and it’s okay. I’m here for you and I love you so much”.

 

And even though she has a million questions about how he knows, and how the feeling of shame and humiliation is strong, she just closes her eyes and lets herself be held in the middle of the doorway.

 

It doesn’t take long for her to drag him into her bedroom and asks if he could just cuddle with her for a while. Because even though a part of her wants to be alone, to disappear and come back when she’s herself again, there’s something about Jake’s presence that calms her. There’s something about him that makes Amy feel like Amy, and even though she knows she can make herself feel like that with some time, and that she doesn’t need someone to fix her, she appreciates the head start.

**Author's Note:**

> comment what you think if you want to!


End file.
